


paradigm shifts

by Astrid_Goes_For_A_Spin



Series: Iris Week 2020 [4]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: BAMF Iris West, Barry's coma, Detective Iris West, Gen, Iris West-centric, Iris and Patty are partners, Iris dealing with Barry's coma, Iris's inner life, Police Officer Iris West, Women Being Awesome, pilot retelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24921898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astrid_Goes_For_A_Spin/pseuds/Astrid_Goes_For_A_Spin
Summary: Iris West-Allen Week 2020 Day 4! Cop/Detective Iris!Iris will learn later that lightning can travel over 750 miles per hour. Now, all she knows is light and noise.There's a crack. A flash. The smell of ozone. Something burning. The floor shaking beneath her body. Something falls hard and shatters.By the time she can look, the old world is over.Iris opens her eyes into the new one.AU where Iris weathered the silent treatment and became a detective - just like her father never wanted.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Iris West, Patty Spivot & Iris West
Series: Iris Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799020
Comments: 9
Kudos: 13





	paradigm shifts

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! 
> 
> I was so excited to have an excuse to work on this, one of my passion projects! While I know we're into the retcons that made Iris always want to be a reporter, I loved early Iris first - who wanted to be a cop to appease her "West gotta help people gene," who discovered her journalistic vocation by accident. I've always wanted to read this story. I am so dedicated to figuring out how her presence would change season one. 
> 
> Secondarily, this was very difficult for me to write at this time. I thought a lot about whether it was okay to make Iris a cop - and if so, what I could do to make sure the story is respectful and safe for everyone to read. I've researched as much as I can, and I hope I've done a decent job portraying an Iris who makes different choices than canon Iris, an Iris who makes different choices than her father, even though they're both detectives.

“You’d better not,” Iris whispers harshly to the pickpocket she’s got by the wrist.

They’re at the particle accelerator opening speeches – something Barry’s been looking forward to for _months_ if not years. He gave her two speeches on the subject today alone. She is _not_ going to ruin this event for him because some dude can’t keep his hands to himself.

The guy nods like he understands when Iris motions to Dr. Wells, and even though she _knows_ it’s trouble, she lets his wrist go. (She’s not on duty, dammit, she just wants to let her best friend have the night of his life).

This is definitely the wrong decision, because not two seconds after her hand leaves his wrist, the pickpocket knocks two other people over and grabs another woman’s bag, an easier target.

Happily entranced by Dr. Wells, Barry may not have noticed the first altercation, but he definitely notices when Iris shoves her clutch into his hands and pelts after the thief.

.

Iris might not love the gym, and she certainly hates to run, but there’s no denying that when she puts her mind to it, she can _move_. The dude hits the side door and slows down trying to get through it. By the time he is, Iris is on him. The purse drops as Iris twists his arms behind his back and holds out a hand.

Barry arrives on the scene belatedly, panting, and wordlessly fishes out her cuffs and slaps them into her palm.

She’s reading the purse snatcher his Miranda rights in an alley outside STAR Labs when the speeches they’re missing finish and the particle accelerator goes on. 

She’s grumbling over the arrest report to the tune of the news in Barry’s lab when the lightning bolt comes through the ceiling.

.

Iris will learn later that lightning can travel over 750 miles per hour. Now, all she knows is light and noise.

There’s a crack. A flash. The smell of ozone. Something burning. The floor shaking beneath her body. Something falls hard and _shatters_.

By the time she can look, the old world is over.

Iris opens her eyes into the new one.

.

Glass crunches under her good shoes. Chemicals Iris can’t name splash on her knees. Char comes off on her hands as she pumps Barry’s chest and screams at him to come back to life. 

.

Because he’s already at a police precinct, Barry is one of the first victims to arrive at a hospital soon to be overrun with the injured. Iris has barely gotten there when they whisk him away. It’s as she’s being pushed back into the waiting room that Iris starts to really understand what’s happened.

Her phone rings and Iris bares her teeth, ready to snap at dispatch for not realizing she’s already up to her quota of emergencies for the day.

It’s her dad.

“I’m on my way to the hospital” is the first thing he says, and tears start to leak down Iris’s face. Someone _else_ had to tell him. “But it’ll be a while, baby girl. Clyde Mardon shot Chyre and the medics just-”

“Is he okay?” Iris demands, her fingers cramping on her phone.

“He’s dead,” her dad says heavily. “And Mardon’s plane blew up on the property. I have to-”

“Dad, you have to _get here_ ,” Iris gasps. “Just – Dad, you have to. They’ve already restarted his heart twice.”

Iris will be damned if she can watch Barry die again all on her own.

.

By the time Joe arrives, scratched and muddy and tear-stained, Iris has bitten all her nails to the quick. Barry has been seizing almost nonstop.

Iris and Patty had been scheduled to have the day off so Iris could go with Barry to the opening ceremonies and watch the particle accelerator turned on. Now every cop in the city is out with the EMTs and firefighters, digging people out of scorched and broken buildings, a city-wide search and rescue. Everyone except Iris and Joe.

When Patty finally arrives, it’s almost 6 AM. She has a big cut on her forehead and her stupid perfect hair is falling out of its tight knot and covered in machine oil. Her neat blazer is creased with sweat and the sleeve is torn. Iris opens her arms and squeezes her until both of them are breathless and shaking.

“You wouldn’t – believe what I saw out there,” Patty sobs. Iris, numb from waiting, strokes Patty’s head.

“I’ve been watching on the news,” she says, nodding dully at the TV on the wall. Some reporter Iris doesn’t know has been out there, white-faced, and Iris spotted the new transfer from Keystone, Eddie Thawne, at least once in the coverage.

“How’s Barry?” Patty finally asks.

Iris shakes her head. “He keeps having seizures. They’re having trouble – stabilizing him, the power’s still so spotty in this area, Patty, he-”

Iris stares toward her dad, standing against the wall with a cup of coffee, his eyes half-lidded and staring toward the doors separating them from their third piece.

“He’ll be fine,” Patty says, but she’s sniffling as she says it and Iris knows to the depths of her being that no one can know.

Iris whispers back, “I am really scared that he is not going to be okay.”

.

The next two weeks are the worst days of Iris’s entire life. Barry is not stable. Barry is never stable. Barry may never be stable again.

Iris isn’t sure that she’s slept more than an hour at a time in the uncomfortable chairs next to Barry’s bed in the ICU, a flimsy curtain separating the West family from a rotation of other victims of the particle accelerator, sick and injured and dying. She eats when someone brings something from the cafeteria, or retrieves snacks from the vending machine.

Singh comes to visit and assigns Eddie Thawne to her dad. Eddie and Patty pull extra shifts constantly, because the city is falling apart, and the city needs all the help it can get.

Iris and Joe are all that Barry has in the world, and if he wakes up during one of these endless seizures and, even worse, the heart attacks, and they aren’t there –

Iris bites her lips and squeezes Barry’s hand and when the electricity passes from his skin to hers, numbing and burning, Iris closes her eyes to remember the feeling of life, squeezes his hand even harder, and prays for him to wake up.

.

Iris spends countless hours on the phone with every boss she knows from the job, every local politician, everyone she’s ever met who owes her a favor.

The best she can do is arrange a phone call, one where Henry listens to the beep of the machines plugged into his son and strains for the sound of his breaths. He tries to question the doctor taking care of Barry, but the doctor rushes away to another emergency, and by the time she comes back, Henry’s minutes have run out.

Iris knows that even though this is her best, it is not enough.

If Barry dies without ever getting a hug from his dad again, without proving his innocence, he’s going to _–_

_He’s going to –_

Iris’s eyes are full of tears.

.

Once the broken remains of STAR Labs take Barry from the hospital, it’s like magic. Barry stops seizing. His heart stops – stopping. He’s still not awake, but after the most taxing days his body has ever endured, he’s _alive_. And better than that – for the first time since the lightning strike, he’s stable.

Iris goes home and washes her hair, standing with the lights off in the bathroom as the hot water pounds her skin in the darkness. Being clean makes her feel strong, and Iris heads back to STAR Labs with a tote bag of snacks, a notepad, and her laptop.

Dr. Wells and his team say that Barry is perfectly healthy – that his only problem is that he happens to be in a coma. Iris begs to differ, and tries to put the memory of CPR out of her mind. No matter what they say, the lightning strike changed him. Iris just has to figure out how much.

.

At first Iris does her own research, but when Cisco sees what she’s googling over her shoulder, Dr. Snow gets involved.

“He might not be the same when he wakes up,” Dr. Snow says gently, confirming one of Iris’s worst fears. Together they look through online lists of symptoms Barry might exhibit after a lightning strike – paralysis, memory loss, hearing and vision loss, cardiopulmonary weakness, and that’s without the neurological effects. He could have paranoia, mood swings, uncontrollable bursts of anger.

But even these are better than the heart attacks, much less the seizures. No matter what, Barry is going to have long-term cardio and neurological consequences from this for the rest of his life.

.

The STAR Labs team insist that Barry will wake up. As the weeks crawl by, Iris becomes less and less sure. She’d be heartbroken if he never did, but she’s heartbroken already. She’s been more heartbroken than this, when nurses held her back as they wheeled his dying body away.

STAR Labs has somehow covered the astronomical hospital bills from Barry’s interminable two-week stay, but if Iris wants to keep her job, she has to go back to work eventually. Her dad did, back in the early days, and she knows why: he channels his feelings of helplessness into the broken city. Iris channels hers through research for the _what-ifs_.

Eventually she has to concede that Barry is stable. He’s not going to fade away on her by now. He has two doctors all to himself, and she trusts them with his life. She has no choice.

When Iris goes back to the CCPD, she feels like a different person.

Maybe she is.

.

At work, Iris settles into a comfortable, calm coolness. The paperwork that used to bore her barely makes an impression. When she and Patty respond to crime scenes, Iris feels both numb and in control.

Outside of work, Iris settles into the reality that her best friend might be comatose for the rest of his life, and what that might mean.

At first, her visits to Barry’s bedside were anxious; she and her dad gripped Barry’s hands and prayed he would keep living. Now, Iris comes to sit with him. She reads aloud from the science periodicals that show up at the house, even if she struggles to pronounce all the words. She updates him on coworker gossip and the news – Central City is almost back in working order; and as far as the impossible? Well, Star City just weathered a siege by superpowered men.

She’s getting used to the idea that he might not wake up, and she’s not going anywhere.

.

When Barry wakes up, Iris is not there.

Iris is with Patty on the scene of a bank robbery and double homicide – one of the cases she’s been flagging for Barry, if he ever wakes up. The customers say there was a storm _inside_ the lobby. The shrapnel the EMTs have been picking out of the victims makes that sound slightly less unbelievable than it really is.

The ringtone Iris has set for STAR Labs plays while she’s finishing taking a statement, and Iris answers a semi-crazed call from Caitlin: Barry is awake, Barry seems to be fine, but Barry is confused and agitated and went off to go find Iris and her dad before Caitlin was remotely sure he was safe to leave.

All of the warmth and joy Iris feels from _he’s awake_ is dampened by the fact that he’s off by himself, upset, with no frame of reference for what happened to him. How did he even leave STAR Labs? He doesn’t have a car. Is he traversing the city on foot?

“He’s missing?” Iris repeats, stunned.

Another call buzzes against her ear, and Iris doesn’t look.

“I’m sorry,” Caitlin says. “He just – he wanted to see you, he was really overwhelmed-”

“Dude was freakin’ out,” Cisco’s voice says in the background.

“He could’ve held on until you _called_ me, I would’ve been-” Iris tries to calm herself down. “Caitlin, why didn’t you call me, like, right away? As soon as he woke up?”

“I was about to,” she says, and Iris believes her. “But Dr. Wells came in and told him about the particle accelerator explosion – _against_ my medical advice – and he wouldn’t tolerate testing-”

“The moment I find him, we are coming straight back to you,” Iris confirms, then hangs up, rubbing her face. She should be full of joy – but instead, she’s worrying about Barry’s memory and neural capacity, the fact that he doesn’t have a phone – does he even have shoes? Does he remember how to use the transit system, or is he actually, literally walking from STAR Labs? She has to organize a missing persons – and she’s in the middle of a _homicide_ investigation, goddammit –

Hand on her shoulder. Iris jerks up. It’s Patty, pointing to her own phone. “It’s Joe, he said he couldn’t reach you, but Barry’s awake, he’s at the precinct. He was looking for you, but we’d just gotten called out.”

Iris knows it’s an abuse of power.

Iris still puts the lights on and speeds all the way back to CCPD.

.

When Iris comes through the doors, she’s already half-crying. When she spots Barry perched on the edge of her dad’s desk, wearing a sweater and jeans (did he… _go home to change_? Does this bastard have _gel in his hair_??) like it’s just a normal day, she breaks into a sprint across the lobby.

Barry opens his arms immediately, her dad steps back, and to Iris’s surprise, hugs her so hard her feet lift off the ground. Shouldn’t his muscles have atrophied after months and months of disuse?

“You’re awake,” Iris whispers. “Oh my god, should you even be on your feet? _Why_ did you leave STAR Labs?” Detangling her arms from his neck, she grabs his arms. “I was getting ready to put a missing persons out for you, do you know that? They said you were agitated and confused and-” She has to wipe her face.

“Iris, I-I’m _okay_ ,” he says, so warm and genuine that she can almost forgive him for whatever this bullshit is. Because he might actually be – okay. But he might not, and all of the things she and Caitlin researched together could be true, right now.

“How do you feel?” she asks critically, still holding him. “I watched you _die_ , Barry. Over and over. Your heart kept stopping. Seizures-”

Barry takes one of her hands and puts it on his sternum. “It’s still beating,” he assures her, smiling more widely than she’s ever seen.

It is.

But it also feels like he’s having a heart attack.

Iris isn’t a doctor. But she’s had enough emergency services training to know his heart is beating fast enough to rip itself apart.

“It’s so fast,” Iris murmurs. “Dad, did you feel this?” Obligingly, her father rests a hand on Barry’s back and reaches around to feel his pulse.

Someone cuffed over by Singh’s office starts screaming, and Iris looks over to make sure it’s under control, then back at Barry. Where a minute ago he was healthily flushed and glowing with happiness, now he’s very pale and sweating a little.

“Barry, I’m going to call Caitlin,” Iris says gently. “Dad, we need to get him back to STAR Labs-”

“I have to go,” Barry blurts suddenly. “I – I need some air. I’ll call you tonight!”

Iris reaches for him, but he’s booking it out the side entrance of the building, and the lobby is suddenly full of the bank robbery witnesses. _Her_ witnesses. On _her_ murder case.

By the time Iris makes it to the side door through a crowd of reaching hands and pleading voices, Barry is long gone.

.

Iris does call Caitlin. Immediately.

Caitlin tells her that Barry’s already called, and Iris feels one wave of relief at him _doing the right thing_ before she gets suspicious. If Barry was already planning on going back to STAR Labs, why didn’t he let her and her dad take him?

Iris would go hunt him down right now if not for the fact that she has to at least get these witnesses handled. Patty gives the captain a report on the case while Iris sits and listens to the same incredible story over and over.

All the while, dread begins to coil low in her gut. Maybe Barry isn’t as _okay_ as he said, and he knows it. Maybe he’s still got something really wrong with him, something he doesn’t want to tell her. He probably thinks he’s keeping her from worrying, because he’s an idiot like that.

“The windows blew in,” the bank teller says shakily. Iris has her in not only a shock blanket but a real blanket that she snuck from Barry’s locker for when he sleeps in the lab. Her face is shiny with fear and confusion. “It was like a hurricane. Everyone ran for cover.”

“You’re doing great,” Iris tells her gently. “Since you saw him close up, I really need you to help us a little more, though. As soon as you’re feeling up to it, I have a sketch artist to help you produce a likeness of the robber. Can I get you anything else? Coffee? Tea?”

After the dozenth witness, Iris needs a coffee herself. Patty catches her in the breakroom.

“This is the third bank robbery this month that had a freak, out-of-season storm coincide with the crime,” Patty says thoughtfully as she stirs the sugar into her own coffee cup. “It’s just like those crazy cases Barry’s always chasing.”

“I put this one on the list as soon as we got to the bank this morning,” Iris says tiredly. “Maybe taking a look will help him feel a little back to normal. Something’s not right with him.”

“He did just wake up from a nine-month coma,” Patty reminds her. “It was December for him just a little while ago. He missed a whole year. Things are bound to be strange even if he’s totally fine.”

Patty’s right – Patty is almost always right – but Iris just can’t believe that’s all this is. If he doesn’t call her tonight, she is absolutely driving over to his apartment. (He shouldn’t be staying alone tonight, should he? Iris’s guts feel like lead.)

She can’t do anything now, though. She just has to make it through this day.

Taking a deep, warm swallow from her cup, Iris heads back out to work. The tech guys are already working on someone’s cell phone footage, and Iris arrives just in time to catch the tail end of a statement.

“The sky went black, and then? _Boom._ Outside was inside. Man, it was like a thunderstorm _in the bank_.” The man who captured the footage is still trembling and wrapped in a foil blanket.

Patty immediately goes over to him and starts thanking him for his cooperation, while Iris stares, entranced, into the footage. It’s blurry, but – it’s _proof_. Proof of the kind she’s watched Barry cling to, live on for years – suspect, dark, and grainy, but still there.

There’s definitely weather on camera. Iris doesn’t know how or why it was inside Gold City Bank, but the footage is _there_.

What’s more is that the footage clearly shows the robber – the murderer – walking off casually with two duffel bags of cash towards a black Mustang.

A black Mustang with half of the plate visible, like he didn’t even bother to disguise his getaway car.

Iris can’t keep hold of her grin.

.

When Iris gets off shift, she drives out to Barry’s apartment. It probably needs to be aired out after so long closed up, but she finds him sitting in his miniscule and now very stuffy kitchen.

“Hey, Barr,” Iris says gently as she lets herself in. “Have you been here since you got home from STAR Labs?”

He shakes his head. “Got takeout.” He points to the trash, where Iris can see the Big Belly logo. “I’m going to STAR Labs tomorrow.”

Iris sits next to him and strokes his hair. “Oh yeah? Did Caitlin okay solid foods for you?”

A disconsolate nod. “They said a lot of – weird stuff, but they said I’m pretty much okay. I – like, Dr. Wells said that I was healthier than I’d _ever been_. How can that be possible?”

“Your body needed a lot of time to recover from the lightning strike,” Iris says quietly. “You were stable for months. No one could tell us why you were in a coma if your body was so healthy.”

“I’m going to STAR Labs first thing in the morning,” Barry murmurs.

Iris nods. “I’m gonna be straight with you, Barr, I think you need to come home with me tonight. I know you probably want to have some space after people poking and prodding you for forever, but it’s just not safe to leave you alone. You should probably still be with Caitlin. You’ve had a lot of neurological trauma and until she clears you, even if you feel fine-” Iris has to stop and collect herself. “I really need to keep an eye on you.”

Barry offers no resistance as Iris grabs him clothes for the next day (he’s still got toiletries at her dad’s, she stares at them, praying for him to wake up, every time she takes a shower) and leads him to the car.

.

When Iris wakes up the next day, Barry’s already gone. He did leave a sticky note on the fridge for her:

_At STAR Labs. Call Cisco if you need me. I’m fine. :)_

Iris stares at these new words in his handwriting and wipes away tears. She tucks the sticky note in her trouser pocket where she can feel its crinkle all day and remind herself that Barry is alive.

All day at work she waits to hear from STAR Labs. No news is good news? Eventually, around lunchtime, Iris texts Cisco: _All good?_

Cisco takes a while to reply but eventually writes: _Test results are still coming in. HIPPA means I can’t talk to you about it until Barry signs off though. :/_

Iris tries not to growl. Is this a good thing? That his doctors are caring for him? Or is this an obstacle they’ve intentionally thrown in her way to keep something hidden? Iris tries, and fails, to keep her paranoia from growing.

She’s already in a little bit of a tricky place, seeing that Barry was unable to make his own medical decisions; she and her dad made them for him, but now that he’s awake, he’s got the right to make them for himself and keep them out of it. Even if it’s killing her.

If Patty wasn’t heroically carrying the double homicide all by herself at the moment (tossing ideas at Iris every now and then, who either doesn’t hear her or nods supportively), Iris would head over to STAR Labs right now. She’s an hour into a rabbit hole of researching medical consent law when someone radios that there’s been a car collision just over a mile away with fatality. Iris barely notices until Patty shakes her.

“Iris, that’s our guy!”

Patty’s already unlocking her desk for her service weapon and badge. “The APB came in, uniforms were chasing our black Mustang, we have to go-”

Iris is running after her. In the heat of the possibility of catching their murderer, Iris almost manages to put worries about Barry back down to a manageable level. That level shoots past manageable and into the stratosphere when she sees him standing in the police tape.

Patty goes off to start examining the scene, and Iris takes a breath, wondering whether she needs to lay into Barry. He’s got a scrape on his face and his hands are covered with road grit.

“Are you okay?” Iris demands.

“Yeah. I just – barely got out of the way.” He indicates the squad car t-boned against a cement planter nearby. “I was coming to the precinct and – Iris, I know who your guy is.”

Iris isn’t sure she’s convinced he’s okay, but she doesn’t have a lot of choice about him getting back to work now that he’s gotten himself tangled up in the case she’s working. Why couldn’t he just stay at STAR Labs and _rest_?

“It’s Clyde Mardon. He flipped his car, and then _he made the fog come in_ – that’s what happened to the other guy, he drove straight into the Mustang, and that’s why he got away, he-”

“You have to slow down,” Iris says. “Clyde Mardon-”

“I know everybody thinks he died the night the particle accelerator exploded,” Barry says quickly. “But he is _alive_. Something happened to him that night, Iris – he’s not the way he was before. He’s _dangerous_ – all of the bank robberies lately – accompanied by freak meteorological events, and just now-”

“I know,” Iris says. “Patty and I were just looking over the reports.”

There are two things to sort out here. Whether Clyde Mardon is alive – Iris can find herself believing this easily, as she has no reason to believe Barry wouldn’t be able to recognize him – and whether he can actually control the weather. That one is…harder to swallow.

“It does make a certain kind of sense,” Patty allows, coming up from behind them. “Also, Barry, you might be right. We’ll take samples from the Mustang to confirm it, but Iris, look.” She hands her a fax, and Iris sees firstly that it’s the likeness the sketch artist from yesterday produced from the witnesses.

Secondly, oh _shit_. Because that is absolutely, _absolutely_ Clyde Mardon.

“Add the name ‘Clyde Mardon’ to the APB,” Iris instructs a nearby uniform through numb lips. She pulls out her notebook to jot a reminder to check the weather data once they get back to the precinct.

“Okay, Barry,” Iris is saying when she looks up. “I have to finish this scene, but-”

But then her dad arrives, scared and worried as hell, coming to make sure Barry is all right.

Barry is clearly not all right.

He rattles off the same story he gave Patty and Iris – but her dad isn’t having it. The best Iris can do is get out of the way and give them space, because –

Now her dad is yelling at him, yelling in _public,_ yelling awful things that Iris hasn’t heard since the very earliest days after Barry moved in with them. Barry storms off without permission to leave the crime scene.

“Barry is not delusional!” Iris tells her dad furiously. She’s winding up to keep going when Patty, calm, voice-of-reason Patty, holds out another copy of the sketch to her dad.

“We’re pretty sure it’s Mardon, detective,” Patty says. “And Iris is right, Barry isn’t seeing things. When you’ve ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, has to be the truth. Iris and I have already ruled out the impossible.”

Her dad stares at Patty. “It’s Sherlock Holmes,” Patty says defensively.

“Sherlock Holmes knew there was no controlling the weather,” her dad grumps, but the wind is out of his sails, and fortunately for Iris’s scene, he follows Barry’s example and stomps away. 

.

Unfortunately, her dad does not share his Mardon knowledge or uncanny feeling about where Clyde might go. Iris and Patty don’t catch up to him and Eddie until the second-to-last hideout in the records – the old barn where Clyde killed Fred Chyre and apparently didn’t die in a biplane.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming out here?” Iris hisses at her father. “This is my case! You have to tell me if you have a lead!”

“Mardon was one of my problems way before you got this robbery,” Joe tells her. “Eddie and I were just checking. If Mardon even is alive, that is.”

“Patty and I are going in, you and Eddie stay out here,” Iris orders, then unholsters her weapon and hand-signals the others into place.

Visibility is good in the barn. Iris has no trouble spotting someone right away, in the middle of the floor. As soon as Iris lays eyes on the figure, she starts to get a feeling of deep unease.

“Clyde Mardon?” she asks. He’s facing away from her, slumped on a stool. “On your feet. Hands on your head. You’re wanted for felony assault, robbery, and three counts of murder.”

Mardon lets out a low, ominous chuckle. “You got me.”

Iris feels like she really, really doesn’t. Nodding to Patty to stay where she is, Iris edges closer.

“The night of the storm,” Mardon begins, “after STAR Labs blew, after our plane went down, and I woke up on the ground alive – when I saw what I could do, I understood. I am God.”

“Alright,” Iris says, very close now, hoping he’ll keep calm. “We still need to-”

Mardon’s hands twitch – a deeply unsettling movement. His tendons are stretched tight over his bones. And somehow, in that moment –

Iris and Patty both lose their feet because of a sudden, violent wind. Iris goes flying back and rolls for several yards, coming up gasping. Fortunately she hits something with her back, not her head – but Patty’s out.

Just when Iris thinks things can’t get any worse, her father and Eddie come running through the door.

Another flick of the hands from Mardon and they’re also on the ground. Scratched and bleeding, bruised and more thoroughly winded than Iris can ever remember being, she stares and tries to judge the situation.

Patty is unconscious. Eddie isn’t moving. Her dad is bleeding heavily from the head. Iris herself is the only one still standing – or she would be, if she wasn’t still flat on the ground.

“You think your guns can stop God?” Mardon bellows.

Iris doesn’t even know where her gun ended up – she lost it when he threw her across the room.

“No, I guess not,” she allows. “But what’s your plan now, Clyde? We know you’re alive. You can’t keep robbing banks.”

This logic doesn’t slow him down for even a second. “You’re right. I’ve been thinking too small.” Holding his arms out, the wind starts to pick up until Iris can see what looks like a funnel cloud gathering. “It’s time to think _big_!”

Shit. _Shit_.

Iris covers her face with her elbow as the roof of the barn shatters into loose plywood. The wind is heavy, and she has to squint to see. By the time she can open her eyes, the tornado – _tornado­_ – has moved out of the building.

Iris has been a cop long enough to know when she’s outmatched. There is _nothing_ a five-foot-four police detective can do against a tornado, except sound the alarm.

She checks Patty’s pulse and thanks God that it’s still there. Pulling Patty’s arm over her shoulders, Iris drags her to the relative safety of the arched doorway where her dad and Eddie lay. They both have pulses too, and Iris has to – to do something about that head wound –

First Iris stumbles outside. It’s loud, so loud Iris can barely hear herself think, and she has to get halfway into the car before the radio operator can hear her screaming about the tornado headed for the city.

“We’ll put out the alert immediately,” he says. “Sending EMTs to your location – get in the car, West-”

Iris drops the radio.

The tornado is stalled about a hundred yards from the barn, and something is spinning around the bottom in the opposite direction as the wind. It’s a bright red light, but the afterimage on the back of Iris’s eyelids is gold. And it’s easily moving just as fast as the twister.

Whatever Mardon is, this has gotta be another one.

A person who was normal, just like everyone else, until nine months ago. Who can do things that should be _impossible_.

Iris swallows and reaches for her backup revolver locked in the console. It takes her two tries to fit the key before she grabs the gun and starts towards the funnel cloud. 

She misses most of it – whatever _it_ is. By the time she’s within shouting distance, the tornado is imploding, the dusty air falling into itself. Someone is screaming, probably Mardon.

As the dust starts to clear, Iris can make him out – on his feet, still hunched, and prowling toward someone bent over, someone in a leathery maroon outfit that almost looks like a scuba suit.

“Hey,” she hears Mardon say, and the person, the person who _unraveled that tornado_ straightens up to look at him – and –

Oh _._

_Fuck._

It’s _Barry_.

 _This_ is what he was hiding from her. That when he woke up, he wasn’t sick or dealing with neurological damage – he has _powers_ , he’s different in a whole new way.

Barry, her Barry, just outran a tornado and _saved Central City_ , and he’s just standing there looking down the barrel of Clyde Mardon’s .42.

“I didn’t think there was anyone else like me,” Mardon starts, clearly ramping up for another monologue about his own divinity.

“I’m not like you,” Barry says, disgustedly. “You’re a murderer.”

 _Oh my God,_ Iris thinks. _You have never been more stupid_.

Clyde’s arm starts to rise, and Barry doesn’t move. Doesn’t seem like he’s able to move – and maybe he isn’t, after all that…whatever he did. It looked like it could wipe a person out.

“Hey!” Iris calls, diverting Mardon’s attention. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. Pretty worn out, though, right? No more storms up your sleeve?”

Barry and Mardon both whip their heads toward her. Barry looks pained to see her, but Mardon just looks tired.

“What’s your point, _detective_?” Mardon grumbles.

“Just put the gun down,” Iris says. “Listen. Just put the gun down. Nobody else needs to get hurt tonight. I think everyone is plenty hurt already, right?”

He’s glaring at her, and Barry, unarmed and drained, is still in the middle of them, and Iris scrambles for every bit of information she knows about the Mardon brothers.

The Mardon _brothers_. They were small-time hoods together. They were both in the plane the night of the particle accelerator. Clyde didn’t die – and Mark is just about the only person in the world he’d care about.

“Did your brother survive the crash?” Iris asks, fishing. “You did, maybe he did too? Maybe-”

“He could be like you,” Barry says suddenly. “He could be _just_ like you, Mardon. You were both exposed the same way-”

“My brother…” Mardon is breathing heavily now. “I could – see him again?”

Iris has no idea where Mark Mardon is. _If_ he’s even alive. The investigation into the Mardon brothers’ death took place while Barry was coding constantly in the hospital, and Iris was not a part of it.

“Yeah,” Iris says, so softly she’s almost cooing. “I will do everything, _everything_ within my power to find him and make sure you have answers. At the very least you’ll know. But if I’m gonna do that, you have to lower the gun.”

Mardon heaves out a huge, pained breath, then seems to crumple into himself even further. “You…first.”

“Okay,” Iris murmurs. Barry watches her move and tries to shake his head, and Iris ignores him as she switches her grip and slowly lowers her weapon. Blearily, Mardon follows along.

“Barry, can you get that?” Iris whispers when the gun is on the ground. She’s crouched with hers, ready to spring back up in a second, but Mardon just – seems exhausted.

Barry can barely move, but he kicks the gun further than Mardon can grab.

“I’m gonna have to bring you in, Clyde,” Iris says as gently as she can, leaving her revolver in the dirt and approaching like she would a child, or a scared animal. “We still have to talk about the bank robberies and the people who got hurt.”

She has no idea how the holding cell at the precinct could possibly contain him now. But by the time she’s reached him, he’s only semi-conscious and doesn’t resist when she restrains him.

Once she has, it feels like all the adrenaline goes out of her body in one big rush. Her head hurts. She thinks one or two of her ribs might be cracked from that big fall in the barn. Oh shit – her dad!

“My dad’s here,” Iris says, panicked, to Barry. “And Patty and Eddie. They’re unconscious and my dad’s got a head wound-”

“I can’t believe you brought him in,” Barry is saying, dazedly. “I thought he’d rather die.”

“Grab him,” Iris orders, then runs painfully across the property to check on the others. Patty is awake, and Eddie is coming around as she arrives. Her dad, on the other hand, looks worse than ever.

“No tornado,” Iris gasps into the radio. “EMTs now, though, please.”

Between the two of them, Iris and Patty manage to get a stumbling Eddie and her dad out back to where the cars are. Barry lingers awkwardly on the periphery, half-holding Clyde Mardon up.

“Hey Barry,” Patty says in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

Barry looks at Iris, full of alarm. Iris is too tired to deal with this. “I’ll tell you the full story as soon as I have it,” Iris says eventually. “For now, I just want to make sure my dad’s okay and figure out a way to keep Mardon in custody.”

.

Her dad is okay. Concussed, but okay. Iris spends the next five hours at the scene, trying to explain what happened without…explaining what happened. She’s not eager to sound insane, and she was the only eyewitness.

Barry, on the other hand, has decided to take a tack Iris didn’t know he approved of, and venture outside the law.

While they wait for the EMTs to arrive, Barry explains what’s been happening to him – in a word, superspeed. Which – that’s a _hell_ of a word. He also explains that Cisco, Caitlin, and Dr. Wells are going to help him stop people like him – people like Mardon, _metahumans_ – because the police can’t. Iris might have been prickly over that if she hadn’t felt so acutely helpless in the face of one of these metahumans just minutes ago.

Iris doesn’t have much of a choice. Barry runs away – _runs away_ – and she watches golden lightning crackle behind him, and then he’s back again, dressed in jeans and a button-down instead of that ridiculous fireproof suit and bearing his silver case of CSI equipment.

Considering this development, Barry, Patty, and Iris make a silent agreement to keep Barry’s involvement in stopping a tornado out of it. Happily, Clyde Mardon is too asleep to refute anything.

It’s Barry who comes up with the idea of a sedative – at least for a while, until STAR Labs can use the data they’ve collected on Mardon to come up with some kind of tech to keep him in a cell. It’s Singh who suggests a straightjacket, in case whatever power he commands is reliant on his hands to control it. Iris doesn’t feel good about either of these decisions, but ultimately they’re out of her hands, and she doesn’t have any better ideas. At least for now.

The world is changing, and Iris doesn’t know how she’s going to keep up with it, but if people are using powers to commit crimes, she does know she’s going to be right in the middle of the trouble. This is what Barry’s been saying his entire life.

Standing in the sun in the middle of a crowded crime scene, her family safe around her, Iris feels suddenly chilled.

_This is what Barry’s been saying his entire life._

All these years, Barry was right. His dad’s been in prison since they were eleven for nothing. His mom’s real murderer not only got away with it, but is still _out there_ , despite Barry’s lifelong efforts to find the culprit, who is…not even human.

Iris has seen awful things as a detective, things she would never want anyone else to see. She’d thought, before today, that she could handle it, that she was good at her job. But this world is a different one than she’d trained for.

Iris steps outside of the police tape and heaves onto the ground.

All these years. The man in yellow. The man in the _lightning_. Lightning just like the lightning that crackles off Barry now when he runs. Even if he’s stopping other metahumans, if Barry ever catches up to the man in yellow, he’ll be evenly matched, and there’s nothing Iris can do about it.

When Barry comes and rubs her back and wipes her hair out of her face and offers her a bottle of water, Iris does not mention this to him.

Instead, Iris smiles, because Barry is _alive_ and awake and not only well, but _impossible_. Instead, Iris lets him hold her as she cries about her dad’s injury and about all the things that happened while Barry was in the coma. Instead, Iris extracts promises about STAR Labs’s research on his health, his powers, and what they can do to keep Clyde Mardon contained _humanely_ and find Mark if he’s a metahuman too.

Instead, Iris gathers strength for the future. She swishes the water and spits the taste of her fear into the dirt where it belongs.

.


End file.
